U.S. Government shuts down.

[FireIceTalon]

Of course, both parties want more government, which leaves pretty much the ones that want less government in the dust. I know one party claims to support less, but it's losing its grip for good reason.

Thank you!

The differences between both parties is very superficial at best; it is more a matter of not how much government is involved, but how it is involved or used. GOP wants lower taxes for the upper strata of the ruling class, less funding on social programs (including education), and high defense spending. The Dems want lower taxes for the petite-bourgeois sector of the ruling class, somewhat more spending on social programs, and a little less spending on military. Neither one are a friend of the working class. The GOP has made that very clear, and the Dems pay lip service to working people but their very position, and thus job, requires them to employ actions that are antithetical to larger working class interests. Some of them don't care and just say what their constituents want to hear for the sake of keeping their political clout, though I think many liberals believe that they are genuinely on the side of the working class. But this is founded on the (incorrect) assumption that the antagonistic relationship between labor and capital can be reconciled. It never has been, nor can it ever be.

At the end of the day, libertarians and other right-wing populists can sing that big government vs. little government false dichotomy tune all they like, but for capitalist systems to survive for any meaningful length of time REQUIRES a heavy handed state to protect private property - regardless of what guys like Hayek, von Mises, Friedman or other scholars of the Austrian school preached about. The involvement of the state can vary of course, and it can take on different forms politically. Then you have an occasional outlier like Somolia, but we see how (un)well that has turned out for them, so they don't really count.

What it really boils down to is anytime I hear some conservative preaching about how they want smaller government, my bullshit detectors go off, and I just shake my head, roll my eyes and move on. Because the truth is they only want smaller government when it is beneficial to their advantageous position in society, otherwise, they want just as big, if not bigger government, than any liberal does. So when you hear a conservative say "the Affordable Health Care Act is socialism!!", what he really means is: "I want healthcare to be only accessible to those that can pay for it (mainly "middle class" suburbanized white people), and I don't want women to have control over their vaginas cause I'm a chauvinistic douche bag that wants the right to enjoy his social & economic position of male privilege". It has nothing to do with bigger or smaller government, but you already know this